Sunday, April 20, 2014

Madeira Islands: Week 47

Hey!

So transfers happened. Sister Lofgreen is gone, and my roommate Sister Hirschi left too :( It was a surprise and we were all super sad. Sister Brundage and I are staying here on Madeira. My new comp is Sister Briggs. She's from Minnesota I think. I met her once... Sister Brundage is getting a Portuguese companion whose name is Sister Cardoso (Different Sister Cardoso from Portugal haha) We are both really nervous but I've just had to remember that we are put with all of our companions for a reason. I know I will learn a lot no matter what happens.

My birthday was fun! My roommates wrote me like a thousand sticky notes with cute things of why they love me and Sister Lofgreen bought me my favorite pineapple. We had funfetti cake it was so American and delicious. It was a fun day!

So we had fleas in our house and everyone was getting bitten alive. The Elders houses too. The bug man came and sprayed our beds and couches and floors and everything, so we couldn't sleep there that night. So we had to sleep at the Elder's house! Don't worry they slept at the other Elder's house haha but it was still super weird. Their house is GIANT though it was crazy. Super random.

We decided a few days ago we wanted to put all our beds in the same room and have a giant sleepover every night, so we did. We have one room that literally is all just one giant bed, and the other room is our giant closet. It's super fun. Hopefully the new sisters like it... haha. We call it Megabed. Way fun!

On Saturday since it was our last day all together we walked in at the end of the day and all the lights were out in our house. We had notes and ice creams sitting on our desks that were still frozen so we were like what the heck? We thought the sisters had just left for some reason and then I was like wait maybe they're hiding. Then they popped out from behind the couches and scared the crap out of us. We screamed and then they sang this cute song that they made up in 3 minutes. Haha we celebrated Sister Lofgreen's last night. Sunday morning we all dressed in black and had a "Funeral" for her. She wasn't digging that but we still took pictures haha.

One more thing. I read a story the other day about the background of the song "Lord, I Would Follow Thee." The writer's sister had lost her baby at birth due to problems with health. She was really really sad and it was hard for her obviously to lose her baby. The next day she went shopping with her sister to get a little bracelet for the baby to be buried in. They were at the mall and she said she was wanting to run ahead and tell people to be really nice to her sister because she was having a hard time. She said unfortunately some people weren't very nice, others were. But she sait it taught her a lifelong lesson. After that experience she would look at everyone and wonder what they were going through. She said maybe someone just lost a loved one, or their job, or found out they had cancer. No matter what the case she was a lot more patient with people on the highway that honk, or people who are impatient at the grocery store. It was a great story because it's totally true. We don't know each other's experiences and we should always be kind and patient.

You're great examples to me of this! I wish I had time to explain that more but time is up. Love you all and have a great week!!